


To Missy's Credit

by elisi



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 16:59:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10745991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisi/pseuds/elisi
Summary: The General felt that after the day she’d had, she was entitled to a drink or two. She hadn't reckoned with being joined by the *other* renegade...





	To Missy's Credit

**Author's Note:**

> Set shortly after the end of 'Hell Bent'.

The General felt that after the day she’d had, she was entitled to a drink or two. As well as some peace & quiet. (Especially if the universe was about to go belly-up.) However, by the second glass a figure in a purple coat of ridiculous cut sidled up to her, and she could feel her hearts sinking.

“Letting your hair down?” Missy asked, and the General could only look at her, puzzled. Was this some sort of strange dig at her baldness? If so, why? Missy was insane, everyone knew that, but hair (or the lack thereof) seemed a particularly arbitrary subject for her ridicule. (Indeed, natural baldness had been one of the few unquestionable perks of a male body.)

Missy waited a beat, then raised an eyebrow.

“Well, that one clearly went over your head... So, they tell me it’s been an eventful sort of day around here. I believe the good Doctor shot you?”

The relish with which she asked was off-putting, and the General frowned.

“That is correct, yes,” she replied, hoping her brusque manner would be enough warning for Missy to back off, but of course it made no difference whatsoever.

Leaning in, Missy practically purred.

“Tell me _everything_ …”

Maybe, the General pondered, there were a few traces left of all that male ego. Or maybe it was the fact that the attention was – although unwanted – flattering. The General neither sought, nor appreciated, adulation, but it had been a hell of a day and the chance to tell the tale was too good to pass up. Besides, she knew Missy would get to the story one way or another, so this was a chance to set the record as straight as it would ever be.

Having known of the plans – if not agreeing with them – she was able to give a solid account of how the Doctor had been ‘captured’, which Missy listened to with great interest.

“Nicely done,” she opined. “And so that’s how the girl got herself killed... He knows how to pick them, that’s for sure. He blamed you, I suppose? No logic at all! Nearly got _him_ to kill her once by the way – oh you should have _seen_ his face…”

Realising that this could easily turn into a long wander down memory lane, the General cut her off. 

“Do you want the story or not?”

“Ooh, she’s tetchy!” Missy shot back, then grabbed her drink and mock saluted her. “Go on the dear, let’s have it!”

But as the General explained the manner of the Doctor’s return, Missy began tapping her fingers on the bar, eyes smouldering with exasperation.

“Well it sounds fun – I’d _love_ to design a little nightmare maze for him to run around in – but it’s also quite possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Why did no one ask me? He’s _the_ most stubborn man in the universe, you need to _persuade_ him, to _manipulate_ him… Making him feel persecuted and noble and suffering is the stupidest way _possible_ of dealing with him. He’s already got a martyr complex the size of Skaro, adding to it is the _last_ thing you do!”

The General eyed her levelly.

“It was Rassilon’s order.”

She’d expected another rant, but at this Missy merely smirked, and began examining her nails.

“Ah. That did not work out so well for him, did it now? I wonder how he likes a taste of his own medicine…”

There was an edge to her words which gave the General pause. Something beyond the fact that the man who had exiled Missy and the Doctor was now in exile himself… 

“What do you mean?”

Missy smiled – a strange sort of smile that was considerably more unsettling than being shot by a renegade. A smile that reminded the General that the Master had been resurrected during the War because he had a particular brand of insane evil, all his own. 

“Let’s say that last time we met we both had different faces… And overall, I’d say I came out of that particular encounter far better than _he_ did, don’t you think?”

She did a little twirl on the spot, as the General could only stare. She had not been privy to Rassilon’s plans during the final stages of the War, when everything had been on the final edge of desperation and the Doctor had stolen The Moment – and now Missy seemed to be insinuating that _she_ was responsible for Rassilon’s ‘new’ face. The General frowned. The woman was impossible and seemed to consist of nothing but unsettling surface and snark. The General liked people who were straightforward and was beginning to weary of this conversation.

“People’s looks are none of my business,” she replied curtly, before continuing her tale.

As she relayed how the Doctor had extracted the human woman – and then how they had escaped – Missy fell silent, although the General could sense how she was practically vibrating with delight. 

When the story ended, Missy seemed to almost glow. 

“I found her, you know,” she said, eyeing the General with shining eyes. “Clara. My Clara. Picked her out for him especially. Never thought it’d pay off like this…”

“Pay off?” the General asked, incredulous. “I did not agree with Rassilon’s methods, but he was trying to discover as much as he could about the Hybrid – and now it seems as if the Doctor has completely lost his head and might have somehow helped make the prophecy come true…”

“ _Exactly_!” Missy replied, as if the General was a particularly slow-on-the-uptake child who had finally got its head around a mildly complicated equation. “Trying to subvert prophecies never goes well. I should know. But oh, to think that I was the one to bring them together…” She brought a hand to her chest. “I think it might make up for the fact that he burned the cyber army I got him for his birthday last year. Well, sort of.” She sighed. “Wish I could be there… Standing in the ruins of Gallifrey, unravelling the Web of Time…”

She closed her eyes, swaying, as she softly sang “Happy birthday, Mister President…”

The General decided she’d had enough. 

“This is a very serious threat to the whole universe, we have every Seer on high alert, and you think it’s cause for _singing_?”

“Of course,” Missy shot back without missing a beat. “I always dance and sing when it’s the end of the world. Especially if I caused it myself of course… You know, there was this time when I ruled Earth, and I had an army of six billion little murder balls – I kept the Doctor in a tent, and I was going to take over the whole universe… I danced every day.” 

Missy’s voice had turned wistful, and the General could hardly believe her ears.

“If that’s true, I will have to arrest-” she began, falling back on simple law and order, as she was beginning to suspect she was hallucinating or dreaming.

“Aborted time line,” Missy sniffed, “Why’d you think I told you? No imagination, the lot of you… Now I’m sure I heard something about a wife – that should be interesting…”

And with that she walked out, leaving the General with the tab and the beginnings of a major headache.

How had she been unlucky enough to have to deal with _both_ of Gallifrey’s most notorious renegades on the same day?


End file.
